For the most part, the Yankees have picked themselves up from their summer swoon and begun to dust themselves off as they entered Friday tied with the Orioles atop the AL East.
But their rotation remains stuck in neutral.
One of the biggest culprits of the club’s 10-23 skid, the rotation has still not fully snapped out of its funk during an 8-3 rebound, leaving plenty of questions about what the Yankees can expect from their starting pitchers over the final two months of the regular season with an eye on October.
After having the best rotation ERA in the majors through June 14 at 2.77, the Yankees have the highest rotation ERA since June 15 at 6.26.
Their starters have been hurt by the long ball, an inability to finish off innings and get out of jams, and haven’t provided much length, either, which has put a strain on the bullpen.
When the Yankees raced out to the best record in baseball during the first two and a half months of the season, their starters were consistently going deep in games (averaging 5.68 innings per game, good for third through June 14) and giving the team a chance to win on a nightly basis.
In 44 games since then, they have averaged just 4.93 innings per game, which ranked 23rd in the majors, with opponents hitting .281 (28th) against them.
“Our guys are more than capable,” manager Aaron Boone said Thursday night before the Yankees were washed out on Friday. “We have everything we need.
“We’ve definitely hit some rough patches along the way, but also I feel like we’re getting some guys in a good spot, too. … We have the guys to go out there, it’s just about getting a few guys going and then getting to that next level of execution.”
Luis Gil, who grinded through five shutout innings Wednesday, has gotten back on track with a 1.93 ERA over his past five starts, though his workload bears watching down the stretch.
Carlos Rodon, who will start the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader against the Rangers, has seemingly righted his own ship by posting a 3.18 ERA over his past four starts.
Gerrit Cole, who will start Game 2 on Saturday, has looked more like himself in three of his past four starts.
But that also included being scratched last week due to “general body fatigue” that was attributed partly to a stomach bug and partly to the fact that he is still trying to get in a groove after missing the first two and a half months of the season with an elbow issue.
“Anytime we give the ball to Gerrit, we expect good things — he’s spoiled us with that, certainly,” Boone said. “Last outing was really encouraging. I do think it was as simple as him having the stomach bug or whatever he had that kind of wiped him out a little bit.”
But Nestor Cortes and Marcus Stroman have yet to turn the corner from their slumps.
Cortes has a 7.49 ERA over his past seven starts, completing six innings in just one of them.
Stroman (who was pushed back to work through his mechanics in an extra bullpen session this week) has a 6.87 ERA over his last eight starts while completing six innings in just one of them.
“I don’t feel like Nestor is all that far off,” Boone said. “It just comes down to finishing off execution. Stro we gotta get rolling a little bit.”
General manager Brian Cashman had explored bolstering the rotation at the trade deadline and tried to land Jack Flaherty from the Tigers, but could not match up with them value-wise after the Yankees did not like something they saw in the right-hander’s medical review.
The Yankees do have Clarke Schmidt on the way back from a strained lat, though he still has a few more hurdles to clear before he could potentially rejoin the rotation by the end of this month.
If everyone stays healthy until then — which is no sure thing — he could bump either Cortes or Stroman out of the rotation.
In the meantime, it will be on the current five in the rotation to pull themselves out of this.
“I think it’s up to the starters now to put up good starts and keep rolling with that because when we were at our best, our starters were going long and giving good opportunities for our hitters to come around,” Cortes said last week. “That’s who we are.”
It’s certainly who they were, and who they need to become again.